It Never Happened
by Eratosthenese
Summary: Harry is in a world where all that exists is a series of dreams in which his entire life has already been lived.
1. original oneshot format

Dedicated to E.D. Daiye

OK, I found half of this and decided to finish it. Kinda quickly, cuz I'm sleepy (I've been up since 0530). Here it is. There's a summary at the bottom cuz it's a bit confusling.

* * *

There was a blinding green flash and Harry's shaking hand fell to his side, limp, his wand trembling violently before it clattered onto the floor. He could hear voices. Faint, distant voices. They were speaking familiar sounds in familiar tones. They sounded worried, but he couldn't understand them.

The green light was still there, fading, a little star in the infinite blackness around him.

It looked familiar, too, somehow.

As if he had seen it in a dream long ago…

* * *

Harry Potter woke up with a start to the voice of his mother after a long, disturbing dream. He closed his eyes, sitting up in bed, trying to remember the details. There had been someone … someone he hated. Many people he hated, all crowding around him in a dark room.

In desperation, Harry got up. Trying to remember it would be like trying to remember every dream he had had for the past seven years. He had been sent to a plethora of psychiatrists to examine him, his sleep patterns, his R.E.M., to see if there was a possible explanation for these dreams which had started so abruptly on his eleventh birthday.

No one could give him and his family an answer.

They were just as confused by it as he was.

Finally admitting defeat, Harry had done his best to try to ignore the dreams. The strangest thing about them, though, was that they seemed to succeed each other, one chapter in a story following the last. And they had been so vivid when he had had them. Whole characters created out of his subconscious. More specifically, Harry could remember someone named Ron. There had been a Ron and he was always with Harry. Red hair, very tall. He was the most distinct memory. There had been a girl in almost every dream, as well. A very long name, Hermione. And a castle…

And magic…

There had been magic.

Ever since Harry had been a very little boy living with his aunt and uncle in Surrey, he had always hoped that there was possibly another world out there, one filled to the brim with magic. But when he had turned eleven, he had been sent to an orphanage and then his new family had adopted him.

They seemed scared at first. Scared of Harry.

But the years passed and he had won their confidence. Harry didn't know why they had chosen him if they really were as scared as they had seemed, but he had never asked them.

Abandoning all reminiscence, Harry pushed his glasses onto his nose and went down the stairs, following the smell of waffles wafting from the kitchen.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall walked away from the Muggle home in which they had just deposited Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. It was unsettlingly similar to the circumstances seventeen years ago. Harry had just defeated Voldemort, as he had seventeen years ago, he had just been dropped off in some Muggle home, as he had been seventeen years ago, but this time, his memory was gone. To him, the past seven years of his life were folded into a dream and arranged behind a series of lies he naively believed. True, he resisted to most mind-altering spells, but Dumbledore was finally able to do it.

"Is it possible he will ever remember, Albus?"

"There's always a chance, Minerva. Always a chance."

The two professors walked down the Muggle road. Had anyone kept watching, they would have seen the silver man disappear, and a stiff tabby cat replace the spectacled woman.

* * *

Ron Weasley blew gently on the wet ink carefully penned on the parchment. He read and reread his letter to his old best friend, knowing that Harry would never get a chance to read it. He was a Muggle, now. A legend in the wizarding world, his, Ron's world. But in his own mind, Harry was just a Muggle, and this time, there would be no Hagrid to rescue him, no Hogwarts Express to take him away to a magical place where his life would change forever.

Harry Potter's life was finished changing.

Ron folded the parchment and carefully slipped it into an envelope. He sealed it haphazardly with some red wax and placed the Gryffindor weight he had gotten for graduation into it, sealing the letter that would never be read with a finality none could ignore.

In that envelope which Ron slid under his mattress was a recollection of the adventures Harry and Ron had shared. Memories, nothing particular. That one time they got locked in the girl's bathroom for an hour and were forty-five minutes late to transfigurations, for example. And a picture Ron had taken of the two of them after a spectacular Quidditch victory against Slytherin in sixth year.

Nothing special.

"When it's time," said Ron quietly to himself. "I'll let him remember me."

* * *

So the deal is, Harry defeats Voldy and then, in order to overcome the enormous amount of trauma, they alter his memory to make him think it was a dream and replace it all with this alternate reality. Then, they give him to a foster home who has been altered as well so they believe Harry's story. That's basically it...

R&R


	2. the craft's

Due to ...er ... _popular_ request, I'm extending this original one-shot into a full length story. It's a shame you already know the story - I usually find it more interesting when the end is a surprise - but hey, you'll live. OK, here we go.

* * *

Harry Potter woke up with a start to the voice of his mother after a long, disturbing dream. He closed his eyes, sitting up in bed, trying to remember the details. There had been someone … someone he hated. Many people he hated, all crowding around him in a dark room.

Shaking off just another dream, the boy got up from his blue sheets and descended down the stairs towards the smell of waffles wafting to him from the kitchen where his mother was cooking.

"Hi, mum," said Harry, plopping down on the chair around the kitchen table.

This woman's name was Aryan Craft. She had long, blonde hair, and she looked nothing at all like Harry. He was a foster child, adopted by the Craft's since his Aunt and Uncle had abandoned him at an orphanage, finally sick of him. He was already too old, however, to change his name, already being eleven years of age, and so he remained Harry Potter, adopted son of the Craft's.

"Hello, dear," she said in a slightly awkward tone.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, taken slightly aback by her tone, so very different from the one he remembered hearing in the past seven years of his life.

"Oh, nothing," she said absently. "Just a bad night. Bad dreams."

"Yeah, me too."

Mrs Craft cleared her throat. "Another one?"

Harry nodded. "Don't remember, though." He could not help but notice that Mrs Craft was looking purposefully everywhere but at him as she served him her home-made waffles.

"Well, that's no different, though. Nothing to get upset about."

"I'm not getting upset. Mum, are you OK?"

"Oh, yes, dear. I'm fine. Where's your father?"

"Upstairs. Hey, can I go to the mall this afternoon with Joey?"

"Who?"

"Mum, are you sure you're alright?"

Mrs Craft spun around so quickly she almost dropped the plate she was holding. "I'm fine!" Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, she continued. "Who did you say Joey was?"

Harry frowned and spoke very slowly, almost as if she was a thick monkey. "He's been my best friend since my twelfth birthday. Don't you remember all the times he spent the night?"

Mrs Craft set down the plate she was cleaning and dried her hands on a rag behind her. He could not see her face, her head bowed and turned away from him, but she was not behaving like herself.

_

* * *

_

_The old man's silver face was lined with concern and grief. "You slipped, Aryan."_

_She nodded. "I know. It's the first day, I was surprised, scared of how he'd be."_

_"We told you exactly how he would be. He would awaken from a dream, probably exhausted and hungry. We showed you countless movies of his 'past', told you dozens of names of people in the time you've 'shared' together. And yet you forget the name 'Joey'?"_

_Aryan looked down away from those blue eyes. She had never seen the silver man this upset about anything, and it was frightening. That piercing gaze over his half-moon spectacles did nothing to calm her as it had done so many times before with his patience and understanding. It all seemed gone, now. He just seemed angry, like he had a vicious lion underneath the surface, struggling to get out._

_"He will be monitored at the mall, and when he returns, he will ask you about it."_

_Aryan looked up, afraid of what she would see. The old man was pressing the tips of his fingers together, his eyes closed, breathing deeply. "Yes?"_

_"They are members of the Order. Now that the Dark Lord is gone, their job is to make sure he never finds out what happened to him. He must never find out the truth, Aryan."_

_She nodded._

_"You will tell him you have no idea what he's talking about, and it was probably in his imagination. He's just tired and needs to get some sleep. Please tell me what I just said to you, Aryan."_

_"Don't know what he's talking about, just his imagination, tired, get some sleep."_

_"Good."_

* * *

Review replies: 

**StellaBlu:** I'm glad you liked it. I was actually feeling uber self-conscious about this story. I don't really like how it turned out, but everyone told me to extend it, so yay!

**PentagonMerlin:** Hee hee hee. I hate finishing things. I guess you figured that out. Well, it's your own fault now that this story will never be finished. That's the beauty of one-shots. They're always finished.

**Padfoot:** YAY! I made you cry! dunno how... but YAYAYAYAYAYAY! That totally made my icky day less icky by a lot... or something along those lines. Well, hope you enjoyed chapter one ish...

(Also, I'm looking for a certain DracoHarry avatar. If anyone knows where they have good DMHP animated avatars, let me know. It might just be the one I'm looking for.) -- Wow... that was random...


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